The Integrity of Digital Supply is not instilling confidence in a lot of people these days. It’s much easier to count an “Impression (IMP)” as “a request from a 3rd party ad server” then to get bogged down in taking responsibility for what happens thereafter….because from that point on, it’s anyone’s guess. Getting your ad in front of the right person at the right place at the right time is more like hitting the GREEN ZERO on a Roulette Wheel.
The ad may never fire.
The ad may be called from a phony baloney website.
The ad may never get to where it’s supposed to go.
The ad may be pixelated or not rendered properly.
The ad may land on an awful website. Or worse, an offensive one.
The ad may not be within any Viewable space.
The ad will probably be viewed by a non-human (bots now outnumber people).
The data provider may have confused shopping activity with recreational activity.
The data provided to calibrate your ad, may have also been sold to your competitor.
The data provider may have used data that exceeded the look-back window and is no longer relevant.
The ad may be lost in a sea of dozens of other display ads.
If the ad is clicked on, it will most likely be a mistake (60% of all clicks are accidental).
If the ad is a Video ad it will probably be skipped after 3 seconds.
As pages take longer and longer to load while the auction is happening, the page might be closed.
The Ad may freak people out as they look over their shoulder to see who’s spying on them.
If it does make its way through the mirror section of the fun house and get to the right person at the right place at the right time, they may very well have:
Changed their mind/already made a purchase/moved on….
and you would have been better off putting it ALL on Red.
